He remembers walking into a Highland Park Starbucks in suburban Dallas in 2005, and a guy in line raving about the quarterback at the local public high school. Aikman didn't think twice about the remark, until he heard Stafford was the No. 1-ranked quarterback in the country and had signed to play for Georgia.

"I said, 'Georgia? What in the hell is he going to Georgia for?'" Aikman told MLive last week during Super Bowl festivities in New York. "I followed him when he went to Georgia, and watched him. Then after his freshman year, I was at this Mexican place -- Mi Cocina -- in Highland Park. I'm having dinner with my daughters, and this guy walks up to me and sticks out his hand.

"He says, 'Mr. Aikman, I'm Matthew Stafford.' So that's the first time I met him, and we struck up a friendship."

Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford has had some spectacular moments in his career, such as this game against Dallas last year. But at other times his play has been confounding.AP Photo

Stafford has come under relentless fire this offseason for his personal bouts with turnovers, with mechanics, with inconsistencies. And it seems as though everyone has an opinion.

That's why Aikman's perspective is unique. He's known Stafford since he was a kid. Has watched him develop into a bonafide star at Georgia. Watched him experience the benefits and baggage of being a No. 1 overall pick, which Aikman experienced himself with Dallas.

And what he sees now is a superstar talent who is failing to deliver.

"I've known Matthew a long time. He's extremely smart, gifted, and talented. Got a howitzer for an arm," Aikman says. "But I think he's got a little careless with his fundamentals, and that has to improve.

"You can't have as many mistakes as he had this year and win football games. That has got to change."

Ah, the fundamentals.

This is not a new concept. Stafford's grasp of the basics has long been panned. It just wasn't that big of a deal when he was passing for 5,038 yards, 41 touchdowns and leading the Lions to the postseason in 2011.

But when he throws 19 picks and becomes the single biggest reason his team wilts down the stretch in 2013, those mechanics become an easy target.

Aikman cited Stafford's poor footwork for some errant throws, echoing the sentiments of Kurt Warner, and added that his throwing platform is off-kilter and must improve.

But he also said Stafford is far too talented to be a lost cause, and that at 25 years old he still can turn it around. Aikman would know.

When he was 24 years old, he had Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith at his disposal. But he threw 11 touchdowns, 18 picks and completed only 56.6 percent of his passes.

"There were 28 teams in the league that year," Aikman said, "and we were 28th on offense."

So what happened?

The Cowboys hired Norv Turner as their offensive coordinator the following offseason. With essentially the same personnel, they rocketed to ninth in offense in 1991 and Aikman was named to his first Pro Bowl.

They won the Super Bowl the following season, the first of three for the 1990s Cowboys.

Aikman isn't predicting Stafford will follow the same trajectory. But he is suggesting Stafford has arrived at a similar career crossroads, now that the Lions have hired coach Jim Caldwell and offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi specifically to reignite his career.

"Some say, 'You're making a change, is that good?' Well, depends on who you hire," Aikman said. "If you hire someone good, it could be great. It turned my career around, and afforded us the opportunity to win three Super Bowls."

Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl with the Rams. Can Matthew Stafford win one with the Lions?AP File Photo

Warner, a two-time league MVP who appeared in two Super Bowls, says placing the right staff around Stafford is critical. He has the talent, but not the discipline, and that gap could close with coaches who are willing to set boundaries for him.

"I believe with Matt's talent that he's going to need some guys to harness him in, get him more technically sound with his mechanics, get him more honed in on just the ins-and-outs of reading coverages," Warner said. "Not that he can't read coverages -- it's just that he's so talented physically that he can get away with things, because he's talented. And I just believe if you try to do that, that's going to catch up and haunt you.

"We've seen that happen to him. Take a chance, take a chance, and it works for four or five games, and then bang, those chances start to go the other direction and it hurts your team. So the more you're in tune with, 'OK, I can't really take that chance. I don't ever really want to take that chance, even though I might make that throw. Let's stay within the framework of what I'm seeing,' and I think more times than not that's when he's going to be successful."

Warner said different styles of coaching work. He had some quarterback coaches who were more about technique, while others who were more about the mental aspects of the position.

The most important thing is to hire a guy who won't be afraid to criticize Stafford and get him to take fewer risks.

"One of the things, when you have a good arm, a strong arm, you take chances," said former Buffalo Bills great Jim Kelly, who made four Super Bowls. "I can never say that I've never thrown that many interceptions before, too, but you just have to be consistent and sometimes know that throwing the ball away or taking a sack is not that bad.

"I think as a quarterback, when you're competitive, you want to take those chances and you just hope that, say if it's a deep square, you hope the guy keeps it flat instead of round it off and when you don't, you throw that pick."

Everyone has an opinion about Stafford these days. And as long as he has that howitzer attached to his torso, he'll still be a valued commodity because of his potential.

"I'd like him on our team," Hall of Famer Joe Namath said.

But that won't be the case forever. And at 25 years old, with a new coaching staff in place and his star receiver starting to age, the time for Stafford to sort himself out appears to be now.

"You need the right fit of scheme and quarterback and everything else for everything to really come together, like it did for us in Dallas," Aikman said. "Sometimes that all comes together. Sometimes it doesn't."